Crazy or not? Hand tool storage in a modern tool box?

[Tony Filippone]

Like most hobbyists, storage of woodworking, household, gardening, and automotive tools in a garage is always a challenge, to put is mildly :eek:

While I would love to dedicate an entire room or even an entire wall or even an entire storage area to one hobby, it's not happening around here.

So, I want to know what fellow hand tool enthusiasts think of what may be a truly crazy idea:

I am thinking of buying a large toolbox for storage of handtools and automotive tools:

http://www.strictlytoolboxes.com/roller-cabinets-tool-boxes/mountain-tool-boxes-72-professional-roller-cabinet.html

I would line certain drawer bottoms with wood and store handplanes, chisels, and layout tools in these drawers. Dividers could keep tools from bouncing against each other or dulling blades. Other drawers would be full of sockets, wrenches, and screwdrivers. Larger handplanes would be laid on their sides due to limited height of drawers.

A purists approach it certainly is not. Practical? Possibly.

Am I crazy or not?

[Matt Radtke]

I'd say go for it. Although I would look for something cheaper than that. HF sells a fine 41" chest, as does Menard's (if you're in the right part of the country) Masterforce brand. You can get the top and bottom of each brand for under $700 when they're on sale. Very pleased with mine. Is it as good as a Snap-On? No, but could buy 5-10 of them for what the Snap-On costs.

The only complaint I have with it is the lame lock, though that isn't a real issue and should only impact you if you work in a commercial shop--it'll keep the honest people and my daughter (once she's old enough) out, but a real thief will just smash it with a hammer and be inside in minutes. But you can say the same about every lock your house, so, meh.

As a bonus, both brands have a 6" deep top drawer. 4 1/2 and smaller fit upright, the larger ones lay flat. I've got my 3, 2 4s, 2 4.5s, 5 1/4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 40 and 78 in the same drawer. The only reason the larger ones lay flat is due to their lateral adjustment levers getting in the way, and only slightly.

Pictures if you're at all interested!

[Pam Niedermayer]

I think you'd find out quickly why the preferable material for tools is wood, not metal.

Pam

[Bruce Haugen]

that you might think about:

Joel's Knaack box (http://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/Merchant/merchant.mvc?Screen=NEXT&StoreCode=toolstore&nextpage=/extra/blogpage.html&BlogID=16)

[Ted Calver]

Tony,
The lousy economy has forced a lot of folks to sell their fancy heavy duty SnapOn tool boxes. Check CraigsList before you buy new. I use metal boxes for all my woodworking tools and neither they nor I have suffered any mental anguish from the experience

[Harold Beck]

I have two sets of Craftsman mechanics tool boxes in my garage. The first has mechanics tools and the second has woodworking tools. I used drawer liner from the grocery store to pad drawer bottoms in both.

I think that this year is the year to make boxes or a cabinet for the woodworking tools, but the mechanics boxes have worked just fine for protection, avoiding dust, and rolling around.

HB

[Tony Filippone]

i am not crazy. i'm going to take the advice of folks here, check out craigslist and see what I can buy used. A few inserts/dividers, and I have a new solution to a plane and saw till! :)

[Casey Gooding]

I started out with several metal tool boxes. I have since gotten rid of most of them in favor of wall mounted, wooden storage for hand tools. It just feels right to me.

[harry strasil]

HF sells a big roll of the stuff you use to line drawers and shelves and use as a router pad for $6, just get several rolls and cut it to fit, then spray with some adhesive and to hold it in place on the bottom and sides, no need for dividers, tools won't slide around on it.

[harry strasil]

With me its a little like the Seaton Chest, but way down the ladder as far as ability. The tools came first, then the tools were put to use building storage for them.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/irnsrgn/wood/Bbox01.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/irnsrgn/wood/Bbox02.jpg


Then as I go interested in Woodies and other older tools and people were starting to ask me to demo WWing after seing some of my work to make and store my Smithing demo tools and one of my Son in Laws started carting alum press plate shipping containers down here. I used the salvaged wood to make several small bookcases for myself my S-I-L and one for my Smith Shop, I started using the older tools to make tool chests for the older tools but on a smaller scale so I could handle them.

The one pictured above requires 4 people to move around, I built a 1/2 size farm wagon that it will just fit in for demos and used 2 pieces of 3 inch Alum Channel for ramps so I could load it into the back of my old muckldedun brown Suburban.

[harry strasil]

FWIW, the two hand saws at the bottom of the lid are/were, brand new unused D-23 Disstons.

[Sandy Stanford]

Like most hobbyists, storage of woodworking, household, gardening, and automotive tools in a garage is always a challenge, to put is mildly :eek:

While I would love to dedicate an entire room or even an entire wall or even an entire storage area to one hobby, it's not happening around here.

So, I want to know what fellow hand tool enthusiasts think of what may be a truly crazy idea:

I am thinking of buying a large toolbox for storage of handtools and automotive tools:

http://www.strictlytoolboxes.com/roller-cabinets-tool-boxes/mountain-tool-boxes-72-professional-roller-cabinet.html

I would line certain drawer bottoms with wood and store handplanes, chisels, and layout tools in these drawers. Dividers could keep tools from bouncing against each other or dulling blades. Other drawers would be full of sockets, wrenches, and screwdrivers. Larger handplanes would be laid on their sides due to limited height of drawers.

A purists approach it certainly is not. Practical? Possibly.

Am I crazy or not?

I wouldn't worry about it as the point is to use them not to store them. Those types of cabinets are perfectly serviceable and beat the hell out of nothing.

After your third or fourth masterpiece all will be forgotten about how your expertly used tools are stored.

Have fun.

[Frank Martin]

Like most woodworkers when I first started I made a wood storage cabinet with drawers. I did turn out really well and it was a practice piece before I started making furniture for the house. After that I bought two metal toolboxes. Why? Very simply they are relatively cheap, they work really well and I can use my time to add more value by making furniture for the house rather than the shop.

[Bill Houghton]

Half my planes and all my chisels live in a mechanic's (machinist's, actually) rollaway, a smaller version of the box you're considering. The California North Coast, where I live, has relatively even humidity throughout the year, although the winter gets damp. With a good liner in the drawers, I haven't had a problem with condensation.

This might or might not be a problem in other parts of the country. When I lived in southeast Michigan, which gets insanely humid in August, I don't recall any problem with condensation in the rollaway that held my mechanic's tools.

I concur with others: check out craigslist before spending retail, and shop around. I paid $20 for the rollaway that the woodworking tools are in. Last Christmas, I paid $140 or something like that for a Craftsman rollaway with ball bearing drawers (online - where prices are often different from the store, although you can then have it "delivered" to the store for no freight charge - I think "delivered" often means taking it from store inventory) for some specific storage needs. I think you could spend a lot less and get as much or more storage than the item you cited.

[Richard Niemiec]

I was running out of wooden solutions to storing tools (and wall space) and I caught a sale at Sears of a rolling mechanics drawer box like you are thinking about and it was on sale. Lined the drawers with the stuff Jr. mentioned above, and it works just fine. Thinner drawers for chisels, rasps, measuring tools, etc., the deeper drawers for shoulder planes, routers, plow and rabbets; and also the braces and bits.

Sure, wood storage solutions, shop made of course, are "nicer" but I needed some quick storage and I the price of materials to build a chest with similar storage capacity would have exceeded the cost of the rolling base and chest top. This was the "economy" line of Sears, and you really don't load them with weight like you would with mechanics tools, so its been really satisfactory for me.

That being said, once my bride has gotten her build list completed, I will eventually make a nice chest and some wall hanging units, but for now it works.

[David Keller NC]

Tony - All of my hand tools are in a high-end 6' tall Craftsman mechanic's roll-around tool chest. It would be a terrible solution for moving tools to a job site (way too heavy for two men to lift, for starters), but for my workshop it's a great solution. Because the entire chest is composed of drawers on ball-bearing slides, hand tools are instantly accessible without having to move or extract tills the way one would in a traditional wooden tool chest.

The only thing I'd advise is to buy some of the drawer liner material that comes in a roll to line the bottom of the trays. It prevents galvanic corrosion and keeps the paint on the bottom of the drawers from getting knicked up with metal tools.

[Tom Godley]

I store most of my smaller tools in metal rolling cabinets.

I have a few older Craftsman workbenches with large metal drawers for hand power tools and supplies.

I think they are great - the drawers can hold a lot of weight.


I agree -- look on Craigslist. I bought two very good Snap-on units on ebay :)

[Martin Peek]

I have a craftsman griplatch unit, with the 5 drawer roller base and 5 drawer top. I've noticed two things -

Certain tools just dont fit - planes and saws are large and bulky, so they have to go somewhere else.

When working on a project, flipping through drawers is inconvenient. I usually take out all of the chisels, squares, etc. and put them somewhere closer to my bench.

I'd say the real benefit is that you can buy the tool storage right away without having to make anything. If you are a apt. renter and don't have a real shop like me, it might be tempting. I would recommend building something appropriate for your own tools, like others have.